Quick Click: Vignettes from the Jewish News Archives, March 19, 2015

03.19.2015

Newsroom

Last month, the seemingly ageless Mr. Spock passed away. He was 83.

His real name was Leonard Nimoy, but he owned one of the most popular television and screen characters in history: the completely logical, impassive and brilliant Mr. Spock, the Vulcan executive officer and adviser to Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek television and feature film series.

Nimoy was born to Yiddish-speaking, Russian Orthodox Jews, who were immigrants to Boston in 1931, and spent 60 years as a stage and film actor and director, appearing in small parts on Broadway and, later, in a fine television movie as the husband of Golda Meir called A Woman Named Golda. Nimoy also wrote several books, stories for children and was an accomplished photographer.

Mr. Spock, however, was Nimoy’s defining character. It made him a television and movie star, as well as a cult hero. And, he was cited more than 100 times in the Detroit Jewish News. Indeed, the pointy-eared Mr. Spock was an icon for many generations. Those of us who grew-up with Mr. Spock will miss him. ■